Immersive media content, such as 360 degree spherical video or virtual reality (VR) video, expands an ability of a user to interact with video as compared to conventional two-dimensional video, such as to look at different portions of a spherical video output through rendering of the spherical video. VR video may be configured for output using a VR device configured as a headset (e.g., an immersive head-mounted display) that blocks all views of the outside world. While providing an immersive view of the VR video, it is difficult to edit VR videos while wearing a headset. Thus, in order to edit such spherical video content, various spherical video plugins have emerged for content editing applications. Such spherical video plug-ins often present a single view of the spherical video content, such as a projection of the spherical video onto a two-dimensional surface. However, it is difficult for users to view and readily understand such 2D projections due to an appearance of distortion that occurs when a spherical video is redefined to follow two dimensions. Accordingly, users of conventional content editing systems are forced to switch back and forth between viewing the projection of the spherical video in the content editing application and wearing a headset to view the spherical video, which is inefficient and frustrating for editors of spherical video content.
Additionally, conventional content editing applications fail to provide a comprehensive set of editing tools for users to understand and directly manipulate immersive media content. For example, immersive media content may include various different types of content that an user may wish to edit including, by way of example and not limitation, spherical video, spherical audio, visual objects such as 2D or 3D images or videos, and audio captured by a mono audio source positioned in 3D space. Conventional techniques, however, often require separate applications to edit each type of content which increases the time and difficulty of creating and editing immersive media content experiences.
Furthermore, conventional techniques make it difficult to place and manipulate content, such as 2D images or mono audio, within the spherical video. For example, such conventional techniques often utilize sliders to rotate or transform content placed an immersive environment such as by utilizing the sliders to modify the pitch, yaw, or roll of the content. However, sliders and other tools of conventional content editing techniques are disconnected from the content itself which makes it difficult for users to quickly and easily add and manipulate immersive media content.